Trek of Joy

Fujifilm X-H1 Bug Fix Firmware Update Coming End of March
Fujifilm X-H1 Will Get Improved Video Autofocus via Firmware Update in May

I don't mind Canon really but, playing devil's advocate, there must come a point where the controlled trickle down has to speed up a bit to stop even the loyalist of customers thinking its all gone a bit stale and seeking pastures new ?

I would 100% agree with this statement. I haven’t used the GH5, but I have lots of experience with Sony, including full frame and APS-C bodies. Eterna alone is a massive factor in my opinion.

Warning the following review may be too positive for some, you have been warned:
 

I just bought the X-H1 in Barcelona whilst I'm taking a break, and I am more impressed with it so far than I thought I would be.
I'd say it is a genuine alternative to the GH5 and A7 III, given the similar prices of all 3.
It does things the Panasonic and Sony don't do as well, or differently enough to make you have a strong personal preference for one or the other.
First of all, the small things... You can assign 1/48 shutter for 180 deg to "T" on the shutter mode dial. Instantly go from auto to 1/48 in the blink of an eye. Very useful.
The e-ink top-display is very useful and something the GH5 and Sonys lack!
One of the bigger things is the quality of the stabilisation.
It's insane. I actually think it might even be better than Oly/Pana. Steady handheld shots are almost completely locked-down as if on a tripod. Even walking glides are perfectly doable. Slider-style moves with your arm come out well.
This is one area where it is FAR superior to the Sony cameras, and it has a larger sensor than GH5 yet possibly even better 5 axis.... THAT is unique.
F-LOG and Eterna seem superb... I am not missing 10bit. Skintones, codec, all very good especially at 200Mbit which is insanely high for an IPB codec. Would be nice to have an ALL-I option but I have a feeling Fuji will do a BIG firmware update in future.
The EVF I think is superior to the Panasonic and Sony side.
I dare say the AF is better than the GH5 too, though not as good as A7 III / A7R III.
The tiny Fuji primes are wonderful, esp. 23mm F2 WR and the 35mm F1.4.
It is very responsive... recording start / stop doesn't have any lag or weirdness.
I still dislike that movie-mode is on the drive mode lever, it should be a single button press to toggle between movie and stills mode. Firmware?
Stills side is stronger than GH5. The mechanical shutter is the best I have ever had in anything. So quiet and dampened. Mega satisfying! Of course, larger sensor than GH5 and better JPEG colours (Fuji film simulations).
I wish the further X-T2 style crop in 4K was not a thing... but it's no biggie, and there's Speed Booster for X-Mount.
I wish the quality of the 1080/120fps was a little better... but it's a very nice creative tool. Plus you can access it instantly through a func. button.
On paper, A7 III and GH5 are better.
In reality.... it's game on.

Thanks! And that video is beautifully shot - wow.
I sold my old a7S ii months ago, and I don’t miss it at all  

Another quick little clip using 60 and 120p footage and Eterna (graded in Resolve).

So far the Fuji continues to impress while the Sony's sit on the desk...
 

Conspiracy theory alert:

Arikhan started this rumor purely because he has a heap of NX1 bodies he wants to offload on eBay at the highest prices possible! ;-) 
 
 

Remember I said I got a copy without the blinking pixel row when I swapped the first one? Well guess what, the replacement has them as well. Sometimes they pop up, sometimes they don’t. It’s fucking abysmal. And another thing I noticed is the motion cadence is a lot worse than on the A7rIII - a lot worse. It almost seems like the processor can’t handle the downsampling of the 6k image and it just gets horrible. As soon as you do a pan this weird almost shimmering effect turns up. Add to that the stuttering from the lacking computational power of the thing and the image gets shitty, no matter how good the low light performance is.
If Sony don’t issue a firmware update within a week regarding the pixels I’m returning it for sure. Guess it was too good to be true. I really wanted to like this camera. 
 
The A7rIII on the other hand, is a true beast.

Long but informative review:
 

Shot this one and put a real gritty/grungy CG.  Still shooting for max cinematic feel from this camera.  Feedback welcomed.
 

The biggest players - Canon, Nikon and Sony all sell many more APS-c cameras compared to FF. The volume is at the bottom of the market, not at the top. 
This comes down to personal tastes, I don't see the point of smaller bodies so cramped they're a pain to shoot. I had to shoot the a6300 with my pinky and ring fingers below the body - that's a major pain when shooting all day with anything more than the pancake PZ. Speedboosters open up more lens options, but Fuji and m43 have plenty of fast options. If the XH1 is too big, the XT2 is smaller and the XT20 is smaller still. Personally the XT2's size is as small as I want to go body-wise. As far as the point of larger bodies? A camera is far more than just a sensor, and more importantly you're buying to a system, so you have to look at the entire range you want in terms of lenses and such, not just a body.
Yes Sony has a few small FE primes - outside of the 85/1.8 they all have major flaws. Plus you have big gaps in Sony's offerings being filled by the overpriced Batis', the upcoming supersize Sigma Arts, the so-so Samyang's and the Toking Firn's that look pretty good. There are more going, but most will be large to cover the larger sensor. The fast FE's are large and the zooms are all really big - they're pricey, and they all almost completely lack weather sealing. I have issues with the $2500 GM zoom having so little weather sealing - and its size. Combined with Sony's iffy QC (check Fred Miranda's Sony board and Lens Rentals optical bench tests, Sony's have some of the widest variances of all their tests) and its a non-starter for me. I paid $1600 total for my 16-55 and 50-140/2.8 - and they're both amazing lenses. Sony's 24-105 is $1300 by itself. If you're trying to build a system, Fuji will likely be smaller and cheaper. Same for m43 I don't buy new lenses and with Fuji's regular sales, the used market has lots of great deals.
Chris

That's the funniest thing I've read all day!
I never get the endless Canon bashing here, as if they're the only one that segments its lineup. Olympus doesn't put the focus stacking and pixel shift in all its bodies - or PDAF for that matter on anything below the EM1. Panasonic doesn't put 10-bit in anything other than the GH5(s) or a competent AF system in anything. Sony doesn't put anything beyond 8-bit 4:2:0 with the same 100mbps bitrate we've seen for years in anything below the FS5 and so on - yet people here are shitting themselves with excitement over the a7III and its non-existent weather sealing, partial plastic body, cheap spec LCD/EVF and so on because of oversampled 4k and what looks like a great AF system for a mere $2000. Fuji, geez, just check the XH1 thread. Where are the threads bitching about the G9 being crippled for not getting 10-bit? Or the a7r3 with its cheap ass single UHS-II card slot and no 10-bit or even a higher bitrate at $3200? The a9 is even more offensive at $4500. Everyone segments its cameras. Its a shitty reality we're forced to deal with. As to Canon, they're clearly waiting to release the mirrorless 5d4 without cannibalizing 5d4 sales.
Chris

How is this any different from what every other camera company does? All this hand wringing over an entry level model not having the specs of a higher end body. Its laughable how others get a pass and Canon gets ripped for actually saying what everyone is doing. I don't have a stake in this at all as I don't own anything Canon anymore. Why is this so shocking or offensive? Everyone does it.
Sony still can't be bothered to put a simple intervalometer on its cameras and prior ones required us to pay for the app. A $500 Olympus from 2013 has one. I'm sure weather sealing will be equally bad as previous models and I believe part of the chassis is plastic. But I'll wait for a camera in hand to test before passing final judgement. The sensor and its AF is impressive, but Sony hasn't added anything outside HLG to its video spec in years. And its still a $2000 body, not a $700 entry level model like the Canon, apples and oranges. 
chris
You don't get 45% market share from brand loyalty, there are plenty of new users buying Canon cameras. The interview clearly spelled out how Canon is marketing the lower end cameras, usability, AF and image quality. Seems to be resonating with buyers if Amazon's sales ranking are to be believed, since the top is littered with entry Canon's.

That's the funniest thing I've read all day!
I never get the endless Canon bashing here, as if they're the only one that segments its lineup. Olympus doesn't put the focus stacking and pixel shift in all its bodies - or PDAF for that matter on anything below the EM1. Panasonic doesn't put 10-bit in anything other than the GH5(s) or a competent AF system in anything. Sony doesn't put anything beyond 8-bit 4:2:0 with the same 100mbps bitrate we've seen for years in anything below the FS5 and so on - yet people here are shitting themselves with excitement over the a7III and its non-existent weather sealing, partial plastic body, cheap spec LCD/EVF and so on because of oversampled 4k and what looks like a great AF system for a mere $2000. Fuji, geez, just check the XH1 thread. Where are the threads bitching about the G9 being crippled for not getting 10-bit? Or the a7r3 with its cheap ass single UHS-II card slot and no 10-bit or even a higher bitrate at $3200? The a9 is even more offensive at $4500. Everyone segments its cameras. Its a shitty reality we're forced to deal with. As to Canon, they're clearly waiting to release the mirrorless 5d4 without cannibalizing 5d4 sales.
Chris

Went out and shot some more footage today with the X-H1 around 4pm, hoping to see what kind of dynamic range testing I could do. It was overcast, but the sun was still pretty bright in the sky.
All of these shots were using the Eterna film simulation, and almost all at either 60p or 120p, slowed down to 24p in post. I graded this in Resolve and just added contrast and saturation, with slight white balance adjustments as I saw necessary. It wasn't this vibrant in real life (it was a gray day), but I wanted to see what it looked like when I pushed saturation.
YouTube definitely makes this footage look mushier than it did when I was editing it.
 

Well, the debate can end, the master has spoken.
 

Lifting shadows and pulling down highlights is the digital version of burn/dodge, I'm not talking HDR. When shooting a sunset for example, I expose for the sun and bring up exposure in the rest of the image in order to have something visible, otherwise I'd have the sun and a mostly black frame. The sunset from Easter Island posted below is an example. I'm not a fan of blown clouds that are blobs of white with no detail. Another example is from Borobudur, it was a gray morning but the sun was up and not clipping the clouds left the stone structure very dark, raw allowed me to recover more detail in the stones. Jpegs just can't capture everything a 14-bit raw image can - which is closer to what my eyes see and what I want to convey in an image. A simple 2-shot bracket can accomplish the same thing, but I'm doing a lot of traveling - 55 countries and counting - so for me carrying a tripod isn't always practical. Plus I prefer to be small/light and just go run-and-gun with a small bag with me when exploring. I shot a lot of raw + jpeg when with my XT2's and even DR400 wasn't enough, processed raws look better to me. And the ones below are just quick edits on a 12" MacBook, I'll clean them up when I'm back home on my iMac. Everyone has different methods, whatever works for you is cool.
Cheers
Chris
 

a7III seems most logical, though a7s2 prices are lower on the used market. If you go speed booster, it opens up Fuji and Sony APS-c.

We have an A7III at the office, terribly underwhelmed by it.. aside from the slight body changes, it feels like the same old Sony experience.. emperor's new clothes imo.
The EVF hasn't evolved since the II series, same 100mb XAVC-S codec,  it's got an AA filter. LCD is a cluttered mess, convoluted menus with no touch support nor gestures.
Yellow cast on every mixed lighting shot requiring fixing in post. Cherry on top is is our unit has the bottom blinking pixel issue others have reported. So much for Sony QC!
Hence my vote goes to XT2/XH1. For stills, the X-Trans sensor, color science, film simulations & classic dedicated dials/ring control take the lead. For video, the 4K just has some SOOC mojo just like the JPEG engine.
XH1: The body/grip enhancements feel great. The new soft shutter & excellent  IBIS allow new levels of low shutter speed shots. DCI 4K. 200mbs codec feels solid in post. Eterna is a joy & needs minimum grade. . Top sub-monitor display. Customizable gesture support. Silent movie mode (bypasses aperture ring, dials etc).

Since I'm trying to evaluate whether I want to sell all my Sony gear for a Fuji setup, I've been taking a lot of photo/video over the past two weeks (I rented the X-H1 first, then just bought one with the idea that I'd have 30 days to return it).

So here are a few clips at various settings and conditions. I'll try to remember what I did for each of these. Sorry the subject matter is almost exclusively my son, but he makes for a good test subject. I'll note the appropriate settings above each video. All these videos are using autofocus. Also, everything here is hand-held using IBIS as the 16-55 does not have IS.

The main work I do is in a much more controlled setting, so I can make most any camera with decent image quality work for that (you can see what I do here - YouTube). I also take a ton of candid home-video type stuff, and I don't have the time really to grade each piece of footage I take. A big factor for me is having a camera that looks very good with minimal effort.

Astia Film Simulation, AWB, Light grade
This is pretty much how Astia looks right out of the camera. I used auto ISO here to see how it would do. Also tried zooming a bit here and there with the 16-55. It actually keeps focus if you don't go crazy with zooms. Nothing at all like the a9 with the 24-70 f/2.8 GM. That thing locks focus and keeps it through the entire zoom range.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Eterna Film Simulation, AWB
I graded this to add contrast & saturation, but didn't change color much. It's a tough scene with bright back light (from the door), and I wanted to see how the camera would handle it. The very last shot in this video was with the Sony a9 using the Natural picture setting, and I graded it to match the Fuji footage. There is some 60fps footage in here as well.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Eterna Film Simulation, AWB
Again, a pretty tough lighting situation with a lot of back light. This is a very light grade - bit of contrast added back in. 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Various Film Simulations, AWB
Here I wanted to see how easily I could match different film simulations, and if they had different effects on overall color. I honestly can't remember which ones I used here, but I tried to make them all look roughly the same. I realize this is not something you'd typically do, but I was curious. I also stabilized some of these clips in Resolve to see how well it worked. I'd say in some it didn't work that well, ha.
 

Here’s some (very slightly) graded Eterna footage shot at 120fps. 
I have a Sony A9 and a6500. I’ve owned an a7S ii and a7R ii. I can get the Sony footage to look this good (color-wise), but it takes a LOT of work, granted I’m no colorist. With the Eterna footage, it’s effortless - literally just a bump in saturation and contrast. 
The dynamic range may not net quite as good, and the slow motion footage may be slightly more prone to aliasing, but color is far more important to me than those things - I believe color has a much more emotional impact when viewing video. 
EDIT: Sorry for the double post of that video. I posted it a few days ago but my post was under moderation (just signed up for this forum), and I see now that it’s just been approved (on the previous page).

Oh that's not my video, I don't have an X-H1 (yet?).

The new Fuji processing software that uses the camera to process raw files is a great way to get the 100% authentic Fuji look if Adobe or whatever you're using isn't cutting it. The caveat is its slow/clunky and the number of supported cameras is limited. Though I think Adobe has gotten a lot better since the "Fuji Rethink Raw" video above was posted back in 2016.
Personally I shoot a lot of high contrast scenes outdoors, jpeg's just can't capture the DR like a raw - I hate blown clouds/sun/skies and I mostly shoot handheld so bracketing is usually not something I can do. For me even the jpegs still need tweaks. For portraits the jpegs looks great, especially with Astia as shown above. Arcos is awesome for B&W SOOC and I really like Chrome for cityscape or street stuff. The new Eterna is going to be my go-to profile for video, and it looks like it'll be good with landscape stills as well. I'm in the "hates grading" camp Mattias mentioned, so I really dig Chrome, Pro Neg and now Eterna.
Chris

If I can rent one I can compare to the rolls of s16 Eterna 250D I have in my freezer (stocked up when it was discontinued)